A judge in Missouri says lawmakers who passed a restrictive abortion ban were not trying to impose their religious beliefs on everyone in the state, rejecting a case brought by more than a dozen Christian, Jewish and Unitarian Universalist leaders who support the right. to abortion.
The groups wanted a permanent injunction last year blocking Missouri from enforcing its abortion law and a declaration that the provisions violate the state Constitution.
A section of the statute in question reads: “In recognition that Almighty God is the author of life, that all men and women are ‘endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,’ that among them is Life.’”
Justice Jason Sengheiser, in his ruling Friday, said there is similar language in the preamble to the Missouri Constitution, which expresses “profound reverence for the Supreme Ruler of the Universe.” The rest of the challenged provisions do not contain explicit religious language, he said.
“Although the determination that life begins at conception may go against some religious beliefs, it is not necessarily a religious belief,” Sengheiser wrote. “As such, it does not prevent all men and women from worshiping Almighty God or from worshiping according to the dictates of their own consciences.”
Americans United for Separation from the Church & The state and the National Women’s Law Center, which sued on behalf of the religious leaders, responded in a joint statement that they were considering their legal options.
“Missouri’s abortion ban is a direct attack on the separation of church and state, religious freedom and reproductive freedom,” the statement said.
State lawyers have upset that just because some supporters of the law oppose abortion on religious grounds does not mean that the law imposes their beliefs on anyone else.
Sengheiser added that the state has historically sought to restrict and criminalize abortion, citing statutes that are more than a century old. “Essentially the only thing that changed was that Roe was reversed, opening the door to more regulation,” he said.
Within minutes of the 2022 Supreme Court decision, then-Attorney General Eric Schmitt and Governor Mike Parson, both Republicans, filed documentation to immediately enact a 2019 law prohibiting abortion “except in cases of medical emergency.” That law contained a provision that made it effective only if Roe v. Wade. Wade was nullified.
The law makes it a crime punishable by five to 15 years in prison to perform or induce an abortion. Medical professionals who do so could also lose their licenses. The law says that women who have abortions cannot be prosecuted.
Missouri already had some of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country and had seen a significant decline in the number of abortions performed, with residents traveling to clinics across the state line in Illinois and Kansas.
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This story has been updated to correct that Roe v. Wade Wade was voided in 2022, not 2023.
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